Hey Guys, Gals & Everything in between it's time we talk about AutoMod.

Love or hate him he is here to stay, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve insight into his work and why it seems he only ever makes mistakes, I suspect it’s by the very design of something that is meant to keep out the bad that you never see these negative things that Automod takes care of as he would have failed his job should you notice these things on the subreddit (And if something is particularly offensive it does not receive a notification from AutoMod in reply form as this would let trolls know to alter their posts until they get by him so in those cases you really wouldn't see him, generally anytime this happens we receive a ModMail to verify unless especially obviously egregious), so the only time you ever see AutoMod really is when you see an incorrect post removal as that is the only time you hopefully ever see him by design because otherwise he has failed to keep the rule breaking posts hidden.

It is perfectly fine to not like it when AutoMod makes a mistake as it can be really frustrating to just want to post something but this bot keeps removing it but due to the amount of hours I have put into AutoMod over the years I still personally would like to try to set the record straight a bit on the accuracy of AutoMods removals that you usually never get to see and to hopefully provide another perspective that he really is doing his best.

Unfortunately I can only give so much information without giving data to the trolls who brigade the subreddit on how to modify what they do in the future so instead of showing raw data I started a long journey in the beginning of June to analyze every action AutoMod did in May (programatically and through combing through every action as necessary manually to verify the right choice was made) and I will detail that journey below in a tiny bit more detail.

I will spare you the details of the stupid amount of work to get this data (Hint: It is not easy to get historical data from Reddit anymore. The whole process (Scraping, Data processing, calculations) took around 530+ lines of Python and 30mb of data/logs and 18 different JSON files to finalize) I cared about two requirements for this project to be a success in my eyes, I needed the hard cold numbers of the few thousand operations total AutoMod did in May and then I had to automatically check as much as I could to weed out correct/incorrect decisions and then I would hand pick through the rest of the data left over to manually to review AutoMods decisions and I then mark it as “Correct” or “Incorrect” which would be based on if I would have made the exact same decision and so I set to work.

In the end I got this very valuable dataset that I have dumbed down to a very nice infographic but I feel it’s important to let you know that I am not a Math person, this is my first ever infographic I have made and I am a programming not a Graphics Design major, so no heavy judgement please and thank you.

So going into this chart you will be able to see the total amount of posts and comments created in May and the amount Automod has removed (any actions in the chart such as “Posts Removed” refers to Automod, besides ModMail statistics which are just statistics showing how many ModMail requests I process related to AutoMod and how fast I do it to make sure y’all have the best fastest most pleasant experience possible here.)

https://i.imgur.com/1oQcrq2.jpg

So I hope you see here just how accurate AutoMod is where it matters, first off 61% of posts never even get touched by him, and of the 39% that do? Only 9% of them are incorrectly removed. His comment track record is a bit sketchier but there’s also just that many more comments VS posts to go against so I guess the likelihood rises of what he incorrectly finds as I am sure some of you know, luckily in that regard I can happily announce that my next project is taking all this data and comparing it to our AutoMod Config and get valuable data on what specific options are triggering the most false positives and the ones that are the most efficient as far as correct decision vs incorrect decisions go and tune from there which I will hopefully follow up on in the future showing the changes as he is still always improving a vast amount and all this data’s main point will help me calculate exactly the best way to tune his settings and see what’s actually been on point and what I need to rethink.

I also have a super secret awesome project related to this in the works that I legitimately believe will revolutionize the way AutoModeration is done on Reddit as I find AutoModerator (While amazing) far too limiting in choice (I will save you one day Me Monday from the clutches of AutoMod), but that’s far off and still in a design and concept phase.

In the end I know it can be frustrating to run into AutoMod because you are just trying to get help here or help others but I hope through this post you can realize I am always dedicated to improving him he is absolutely here in an attempt to make the Subreddit a better place and as someone on the ground level dealing with the mess I do believe he does it successfully even with some crossfire on occasion, I can tell you that I and our team would NOT be capable of keeping this subreddit safe without AutoMod especially for some very specific cases we have encountered that I will not detail in order to not give trolls attention.

I am however sorry anytime he incorrectly removes something you have posted but I hope through this I can also educate you on his positive effect and to inform those not in the know to please reach out via ModMail in case you ever think you are wronged by the Termigaytor and I will always do my best to resolve it as fast as humanly possible and I am sure anyone who has ever needed help related to AutoMod in ModMail knows my track record of fast response times (where possible) can confirm this. The first thing I do every morning before coffee or anything is check AutoMod and the subreddit to make sure you are all okay and confirm all posts and fix all AutoMod mistakes and then I start my day.

You guys are why we all do what we do (My action count in may was nearly double AutoMods in fact) and AutoMod works to try to make this place a safer place for all of you as well so thanks for being patient while we work through the kinks but in the end AutoMod grows with all of us and I hope at the very least this offered insight into that growth and AutoMods actions and how he positively affects the subreddit even if the improvement or effect is invisible, I hope you somehow feel it in all the positive connections you can make, love you receive and help that is offered to you from our members instead of vitriol from some other angry community attempting to brigade us or bored trolls trying to hurt a specific user or just users oblivious to the rules, whatever it may be, AutoMod does his best to keep it at bay so the other stuff can thrive.

Thanks, Pamander & the LGBTeens moderation team <3